The USS Discovery
by Alex Ratcliffe
Summary: James Earl Bennet never did find out why his friend Hal Emmerich abandoned University and disappeared. Now, he's back in touch, in the aftermath of Shadow Moses, and wants him to join Philanthropy. PreTanker.


Metal Gear Solid FanFiction, by Alex Ratcliffe / DISCLAIMER: I don't own any of the Metal Gear Solid characters you recognise. Only James Bennet, Mr Silver, his colleague. Pre- Tanker.

**THE U.S.S. DISCOVERY **

**NaturalHigh**: Yo otaku.

**OtakuAddict**: How'd it go?

**NaturalHigh**: Was success. Got loads of cream.

**OtakuAddict**: Nice, send it.

James Earl Bennet (aka NaturalHigh) almost typed another message before doing so, thinking it would be appropriate to warn Hal of the file contents. Actually, he sent multiple files in a folder to his anime - obsessed buddy, encoded in a complex CODEC algorythm of his own creation. His eyes darted upwards to the text they had shared, which was subtle and (hopefully) meaningless to anyone who should read it. James was always cautious in any communication with Hal Emmerich, as he was a controversial man. Which was why...

**OtakuAddict**: Ok on its way. And why you still not officially joined Philanthropy BTW :?

**OtakuAddict**: Could use ur talent :)

**NaturalHigh**: Sos man. told u b4. Dont need the notoriety. Am no SSnake either.

As for James' recent success, well, he thought - that was something to be proud of. Specifically, one hack to be proud of. Classified files of the United States Marine Corps weren't as easy to come by as a StarBucks. And the 'cream' to which he'd referred certainly had nothing to do with a latte. It was in fact valuable data that was of special interest to Otacon.

Otacon, James thought to himself, grinning. Hal had tried to insist that everyone call him that at Iowa State University, to no avail. Now he claimed that "Everyone calls me that nowadays." James had absolutely no idea who 'everyone' was, but then, he really didn't know how many members Philanthropy really had.

**OtakuAddict**: got it. ! Well done mate ! U always were teh beta hacker. Now Sleep!  
** OtakuAddict has logged off **

James grinned. Hal knew he'd been running on caffeine for the past 12 hours, and had been awake for... he glanced at his watch wearily. 19 hours. Hell, he did need sleep - and after all that planning, the patience of uploading his retrieval program three bytes at a time, the tension had been slow burning. After the eventual success, he was briefly exhilarated, but inevitably drowsy.

Shutting down his system, he flopped onto the bed with his clothes still on. He was wearing black jeans, and a beige vest with a coffee stain on it. He didn't care.

As his consciousness became clouded, his mind remained on Hal Emmerich. Not the serious, guilt ridden Hal that he had known recently, but the Hal that had minored in Mechanical Engineering in Iowa. Where he and James shared their love for manga and discovered their love of hacking. Such a strange family, too - his father was a physically strong, traditional military man, while his stepmum... James was too sleepy to remember their names... well, she was really sexy, actually, though he never admitted it to Hal... and his little stepsister who was always stealing his glasses...

Long before proper sleep arrives, thoughts become obscure, memories and imagination mingle with no respect for reality. James Earl Bennet's cognition had constructed a sequence of events where Hal was telling him that he had to drop out of Iowa because his glasses had been stolen by E.E., and that he had enlisted the famous Solid Snake to get them back. When R.E.M. sleep was finally achieved, James' dream was transformed into something totally different. He was running through his old school, looking for the Principal. He felt something prick his neck, and he knew that the bully, Travis Green, was behind him, the fear rose in his chest, but it soon declined. That was, in fact, because the whole dream was interrupted - but James was still asleep.

Six hours later, having had no dreams he could remember, James returned to a semi - conscious state. He did not open his eyes. He felt like he had not slept at all. Vaguely, he wondered why his head felt so sore, and at such a strange angle.

He moved his head. Instead of repositioning it to a cooler part of the pillow, he numbly felt his cheek scrape across a grimy, concrete surface.

Now, he opened his eyes.

A rising sense of panic had his sight recover in an instant. He was lying, face down, in a small, grey, dirty concrete room.

As he rolled onto his back, he felt a twinge on his neck. Unconsciously raising his hand to it, he was surprised to find a small, scratchy band-aid applied to it. Like the kind doctors use after large diameter syringe injections.

Jerking his head around the room, James saw 2 rustic oil drums, a bare shelf, and a window grated with a metal mesh. Also present were sturdy, modern looking bars installed around it. The mundanity of the room did not alleviate James' fear of this alien place. A couple of meters beyond James' feet was an old, heavy looking metal door, that was coated with grime. It had a few lock mechanisms, and a security bar latch.

James gasped as he heard scraping beyond the doors' surface. Someone was opening the locks. Irrationally, James was overwhelmed the instinct to hide, but the two barrels weren't going to conceal his frame. He scrambled his back to the wall of the room, breathing heavily. The bar of the door lifted, with a grind of rust.

If the two men who stood in the door frame presented a threat, then they most certainly didn't look the part. One was dressed in plain blue jeans, and a plaid shirt, untucked. He had close cropped, receding brown hair, and wore glasses. He looked like a father figure. To the right of this man stood another ,this one dressed in a generic business suit and red tie. He had short, blonde, slicked back hair, and narrow brown eyes that stared at James. James himself was speechless, backed against the wall.

The plaid-shirted individual said "James Earl Bennet, Sir. Auto engineer. Hacked into the Marines' R&D classifieds eleven hours ago, knew Emmerich at University."

Crap. _Crap._ They knew. He was fucked. Shit, shit, he was _goddamn_ fucked! Where was he? Who were these people, FBI? "Good, good." came the reply. The suit had a raspy, irritating voice.

"So, you knew our friend 'Otacon', before that bit of business with his sister." James tensed. "Dreadful. Just dreadful. Dropped straight out of Iowa after it happened too, I believe?" The brown haired man nodded confirmation. "Well James, maybe if you'd been a better friend, perhaps we wouldn't be in this situation."

"I - but I- "

Both men started laughing. "James, James! Its OK!" the slick one insisted. "Hal didn't tell you why he just dropped out like that, did he? About the affair with his stepmother?"

James' mouth froze shut. He had often wondered why his friend had just deserted Iowa like he did, but even after Otacon found his former friend after Shadow Moses, he had offered no explanation. Was he about to learn the truth here, of all places? Where was here, anyway?

"Where- where am I?" James spluttered. The fear in his throat allowed him to force his words out, but he felt groggy and dull-witted.

"Far from home." said the suit. "But never mind that. I expect you're feeling a little disorientated. My colleague here injected you with a special anaesthetic, but it'll wear off soon. Lets talk about something more interesting! You breached Military Grade Encryption Protocols! Retrieved highly classified Research and Development files from a US Marine Corps General! For a relatively unknown hacker, I think congratulations are in order." This one way conversation acutely reminded James that his captors had not identified themselves yet. He had a feeling, actually, that they weren't planning to.

"Read anything interesting? Metal Gear RAY must look cool, huh? What do you think about its marine capabilities? Bet you'd like to listen to Dolph's speech, wouldn't you, in a couple of weeks' time?"

Were these guys _Marines?_ Did they have a task force for this kind of thing? James tried to concentrate on what he had read about the USS Discovery, and the Marine General's speech, all outlined in the files he had retrieved. But it was useless. He was too scared and confused to do anything but listen to the man, stupidly.

With no provocation, the man by the door, wearing a plaid shirt and glasses, pulled a pistol from his jeans and aimed it directly at James' forehead. As he was already backed up against the wall, there was nothing he could do but cringe. With a whimper, he pushed himself a few feet to the side, so he was behind the man in the suit.

The blonde man grinned sadistically. "Relax, James, it just means you're coming with us. We've got an important meeting. Stay two steps in front of my friend here, and he won't have any reason to shoot you."

James gingerly got to his feet, and experienced a blood rush so fierce it blinded him momentarily. The two men just waited patiently for him to recover, as if he was just delaying to tie his shoelaces. He wasn't actually wearing shoes though, only the grey socks that he had been wearing for over 24 hours now. Shakily, he approached the man in the doorway, who stepped aside, gesturing him left with his gun. He was in a narrow grey corridor, bare except for the piping. "Move." came the instruction from behind him.

With shaking legs and unsteady feet, the fatherly - looking man directed James through a couple of intersections, Beretta 9mm pointed square at his back all the way. He couldn't hear his footsteps, but he knew the blonde man must be following, too. They passed three doors in the long corridors, until coming to one guarded by two heavily armed sentries. Not a word was said as he was ushered into the room, but he saw the guards nod at the men behind him. They arrived in a square, white room, that simply had another door on the opposite side of it. This room was obviously cleaner than the rest of the facility, and the large door had electronic security mechanisms on either side of it. The man with the suit emerged from James' rear, and swiped a card through the first machine. After a beep, he lowered his head into the second unit, and sweeping lights covered his ears. Retinal scanner, James recognised dully. The walk had brought him back to his senses, somewhat.

An affirming electronic tone signaled them to enter the high security room. As James looked around, he choked at the insanity of this rooms' contents.

It was a candlelit room, relatively spacious, like a board room. It was covered in plaster and mortared brick. Most disturbing, however, were the rooms occupants.

Twelve mannequins, all identical, were seated on wooden chairs in a semicircle. Their blank, smooth heads had no facial features, save for a hole in place of a mouth. None of them were clothed. They appeared as standard Department Store mannequins, although they all had cables running out from the back of their necks to a humming and blinking box in the corner of the room.

James Bennet gazed, transfixed, at this inanimate, but truly terrifying, sight. He had not realised he was frozen, rooted to the spot, until the jeans-and-shirt man pushed him onto large wooden chair. The man also pushed a button on the wall, which clamped a metal collar around James' neck, having protruded from the chair. Still staring at the gathering of mannequins, he barely heard what the blonde man said.

"My esteemed Wisemen" rang throughout the silence. "We have new developments."

The blonde man was stood facing the seated semicircle, _addressing the mannequins._ "This man is James Earl Bennet. As you detected, he accessed details on the RAY project, and so we bring him before you." His courtesy toward these mannequins gave James an indescribable sense of apprehension.

In a turn of events that James' mounting fear had almost expected, the mannequins responded. In his irrational state, he had imagined a quiet, but terrifying, human voice respond, as the mannequins came to life. Therefore he jumped, at great expense to his neck, when a loud, electronically amplified female voice rang out from the mannequins.

"THE COMMITTEE HAS CONFIRMED THE ASSOCIATIVE RELATIONSHIP OF BENNET AND EMMERICH. THANK YOU, MR SILVER. PLEASE STEP DOWN."

The suited man- Mr Silver- retreaded to the corner with his colleague.

"MR BENNET. YOU ARE PROBABLY CONFUSED. YOU NEED TO KNOW THAT WE ARE NOT THE LAW AS YOU KNOW IT, BUT A HIGHER ORDER OF LAW. YOU MUST RESPECT US, AS THE ONLY RIGHTS YOU HAVE ARE THE RIGHTS WE GIVE YOU. WE WOULD LIKE SOME INFORMATION FROM YOU. WE WILL BE AWARE OF ANY LIES YOU ATTEMPT."

"I- " but James could not express anything now. He didn't even know which mannequin was speaking, as they were all perfectly still. It sounded like a speaker was implanted in one of the right-hand mannequins' gaping mouths. "I don't- "

"BE QUIET, JAMES. JUST ANSWER THE SIMPLE QUESTIONS. DID- "

But the sentence stopped there. Instead, a static hissed from the speaker, a beeping, and a metallic grinding noise. James panicked, in case he was supposed to understand this as communication. He looked over at the other two humans in the room, who were looking concerned at each other at the noise. Until-

"QUESTION 1. HAVE YOU BEEN IN RECENT CONTACT WITH YOUR UNIVERSITY ASSOCIATE HAL EMMERICH, A.K.A OTACON, IN THE PAST FIVE MONTHS." The question was relayed with no upwards inflection at the end, like humans use to question each other. "Yes!" gasped James.

QUESTION 2. DO YOU KNOW THE CURRENT LOCATION OF HAL EMMERICH." No mention was made of the fact he had co-operated, had told the truth and not attempted to lie, just another question with no human inflection. "No! No, i'm sorry! He never told me! He wouldn't even tell me where Philanthropy was based- "

"SILENCE. WE DETECT THE TRUTH. QUESTION 3. DID YOU GIVE THE US MARINE CORPS CLASSIFIED FILES TO HAL EMMERICH." "Yes! The whole hack was for him! I was just doing him a favour! Please let me go, i've got nothing to do with this, or Metal Gear tech, I was just- "

"SILENCE. THANK YOU FOR ANSWERING OUR QUESTIONS HONESTLY. PLEASE APPROACH THE COMMITTEE, MR SILVER."

James sank into his chair, defeated. He had just given up one of his oldest friends, and he might not even get to live. No-one had told him they would not kill him. Not even the damn mannequins. And he still didn't really know who these people were. The blonde man in the suit resumed his position, and looked guilty. "My honourable Wisemen, when we tried to access the data files Bennet hacked, some kind of program activated, corrupting some of the files. We're still trying to find out exactly- " James forced a dark grin. He had booby-trapped his hard drive to ensure no-one could ever look at what he'd been accessing. "HALT THESE INVESTIGATIONS IMMEDIATELY, MR SILVER. WE KNOW EXACTLY WHAT THE CONTENTS OF THE FILES ARE. THEY CONTAIN SECRET TRANSPORTATION DETAILS OF THE METAL GEAR RAY PROTOTYPE ABOARD THE OIL TANKER USS DISCOVERY, AS YOU ALREADY KNOW. ONE OF THE FILES CONTAINS THE SHIPPING ROUTE OF OF THE TANKER, THE TIME AND DATE IN 17 DAYS TIME. BY NOW, THE SCIENTIST EMMERICH KNOWS THE MARINE CORPS PLANS, AND WILL BE PLANNING WITH PHILANTHROPY TO INFILTRATE THE SHIP. THIS INDICATES THAT SOLID SNAKE WILL BE THE OPERATIVE CHOSEN, EITHER TO DESTROY THE PROTOTYPE OR EXPOSE IT TO THE PUBLIC."

"Excellent, excellent." Silver looked relieved. "It would be my honour to be the one to kill Snake, and commandeer the prototype. I think if-"

"REQUEST DENIED. OCELOT WILL BE OUR OPERATIVE. THIS IS ESSENTIAL. WE HAVE PLANS INVOLVING THE RUSSIAN, COLONEL GURLUKOVICH, THAT ONLY HE CAN IMPLEMENT."

"_OCELOT! _I - I say again, i've been outspoken on this matter before, this committee should not trust that son of a bitch-"

"THE WISEMEN WILL DECIDE WHO TO TRUST, MR SILVER. THE DECISION IS MADE, AND WE WILL NOT BE KILLING SOLID SNAKE. INSTEAD, HE WILL BE FRAMED WITH THE SINKING OF THE USS DISCOVERY, AND BRANDED A TERRORIST. OUR PLANS SERVE A BIGGER PICTURE THAN YOU PERCEIVE, MR SILVER. THIS MEETING IS OVER. YOU ARE ORDERED TO DEAL WITH MR BENNET AND NOT TO COMMUNICATE WITH SHALASHASKA. COMPLY NOW."

Mr Silver, flustered, bowed to the mannequins, and stepped back. James, who had been watching silently, neglected, jumped as the collar round his neck retracted with a mechanical SNAP. The pistol-wielding man gestured him out the room. Once past the guarded doors, Mr Silver burst "_Ocelot!_ Not once have I been inclined to trust that jumped-up son of a bitch. You've seen how he superior he obviously thinks he is, twirling those fucking revolvers at you. I hope they don't blame me if it all goes to hell." Silver continued in this mould until they reached the cell that James had woken up in. "Back in here for a while, Bennet. Make yourself comfortable, won't be long." He had a malicious smile on his face as he exited the room with his associate, leaving James alone.

He just stood there for what seemed like an eternity. His thoughts were having a heard time processing what just happened. The mannequins represented people, twelve of them. But only one of them spoke, remotely through a speaker. And something awful was slowly creeping up on James Earl Bennets' mind, the guilt at how quickly he had volunteered his information. And they were going to trap Snake... steal the Metal Gear he had seen in those files, sink the ship it was being transported in- James' stomach turned as he thought, _kill all those Marines..._

Keeling over, with his back to the door now, James broke down and sobbed. He was so confused. It was as if his captors _knew_ they were tormenting him, cruelly and sadistically, by not explaining the situation or revealing their identities. He inhaled sharply, eyes wide with fear, as he heard footsteps on the other side of the door. He was useless now, he knew. They were going to kill him and bury him somewhere he could not be found.

But something was wrong. Instead of inserting keys in the locks, he could hear rough snaps and tweaks. He was stood in the middle of the room now, staring at the door, listening to metallic snapping and clicking. Someone was opening the door, he intuited, but not in the conventional means.

The sounds stopped. The bar raised, slowly this time. And then, the door was kicked in.

The brief scrape could only be heard for a split second as the weathered door flung open. On the other side, guns raised, was what appeared to be a band of mercenaries. None of them were centered in the door frame, but had their suppressed weapons edged around the wall.

The only one not wearing a mask was a woman, but James' first thought was that it was a man. She had white, closely shaved hair, a wide forehead and thin features. She spoke to James in a harsh Russian accent.

"You! Identify yourself!"

"I- I'm James Bennet, you've got to help me, i'm a hostage here!" James stammered. "They're gonna kill me, please!"

"The Patriots do not take hostages." She replied accusingly. "Why you?"

"They interrogated me! I'm a hacker! They wanted information! I don't know who they are!" James' answer was akin to begging.

"OLGA!" They all jumped. The voice came from a loudspeaker, or some kind of PA system. It was Mr Silver.

"WHERE ARE YOU!" demanded the woman named Olga angrily. "YOU CAN HIDE FROM THE AMERICAN PEOPLE, BUT YOU CAN'T HIDE FROM ME!" she yelled.

"YOU THOUGHT THE WISEMEN'S COMMITTEE WOULD BE HIDING HERE, OLGA? _HERE?!_ YOUR OLD MAN WOULD BE ASHAMED. THEY'RE NOT HERE, YOU'LL NEVER FIND THEM, AND YOU SHOULD STOP MAKING THEM YOUR ENEMIES. NOW LEAVE. YOU'RE NOT FAR FROM THE EXIT. YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO GET OUT IN TIME."

The ominous nature of these words caused James to look at the militants, wanting to know exactly what was going on, but Silver's words where clarified when a thin _hiss_ escaped from the steam vents. The air around them distorted and hazed. Olga turned, panic-stricken, to her team. "Out. OUT! Cover your mouths!"

The military squad had already begun sprinting down the corridor when James realised he should follow. He stretched his vest over his mouth, recieving the pleasant aroma of coffee, and ran after the team. When they turned a corner (they had ran the opposite direction to the route he had been guided down before) he bounded after them, only to see them whip round another corner when he did so. His socks slid on the floor, providing no traction. He was faintly aware of his mind strangely relaxing, but this was okay, he only had one thing to concentrate on... _Run... _he turned another corner to see a long straight in front of him, because despite his now-blurred vision, he could see wide-open doors at the end, with sunlight beaming through... _Keep Going..._ his body felt numb. His lungs ached, but the burning sensation in his legs was fading... He was almost there now... he didn't see the bodies on the floor, and tried to crawl to the light, but why couldn't he remember falling? Surely he would have felt that? He could see outside clearly now, a sunny afternoon, with long fields ahead of him... as he slumped into unconsciousness, his last thought, was that he was free.


End file.
